


Motherfucking Guitar

by MilkyPotus



Category: Bates Motel (2013)
Genre: AU, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Humor, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Light Angst, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:07:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22322299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MilkyPotus/pseuds/MilkyPotus
Summary: AU - Norma doesn't drive to Portland, she instead gets hammered at a bar near White Pine Bay. She's drunk, but that doesn't stop her from showing off her skills
Relationships: Norma Bates/Alex Romero
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	Motherfucking Guitar

**Author's Note:**

> At an interview with Vera Farmiga about BM, Vera mentions a deleted scene were Norma goes all out on a guitar and rocks around in a bar. I decided to try and write something about that, but got a bit lost on track and made this into a normero ff. Not sorry.

Norma walked past multiple sleazy guys trying to reel her in to talk to her, and she plopped herself down when she finally came to the front counter by the bartender. She raises a hand to signal for him to come here, and the employe does so after pouring a margarita to a couple nearby. 

She orders four shots of something they called a motherfucker, and it apparently had tabasco in it. Norma hadn’t known that, but she begrudgingly drank three of them straight away. She winced at the taste, but she perhaps deserved this awful taste. The stigning in her throat makes her puffy, red eyes water again, and she takes a deep breath to keep them from falling down. She doesn't want to cry in a bar that smelled like perspiration.

So she pulled a fast one, held her breath, and shot down the last one. She shuddered, then quickly averted her eyes from the four glasses and looked around in the bar, focusing on anything else but her thoughts. Her eyes stop at the poor attempt at a karaoke station in the corner, where two drunk guys were singing  _ “time after time”.  _

There was an untouched electric guitar in the corner collecting dust, and Norma pouts at that. Who would leave a perfectly good guitar, an expensive brand too, in such a bar? She ponders about it for a second, and decides that she will take just one more shot before approaching the small stage. 

She signals for the bartender to come to her again, and just as smoothly he pours her another disgusting motherfucker. That won’t do.

“Don’t you have anything less disgusting?” She asks over the loud music, and the bartender stares at her in surprise. He then smirks. 

“You know, you might be the first lady to ever come here, drink four shots of our most hated drink and  _ then _ ask for something else.” He replies, then throws the entire glass into the trash and pours her a shot of whiskey. “It’s on the house” he offers her and she grins, taking the shot from his hand and feels relieved even as the familiar liquid burns her throat. “You got a name?” 

“Norma!” She giggles as he leaned his elbows on the counter, coming closer to her, and Norma does just the same, leaving a few inches between them. She looks at his shirt, trying to read what his name tag says. “Your name is banter?” 

He laughs and shakes his head. “No, that’s actually my specialty” she nods, even though she has no idea what he meant. “My actual name is small talk” it takes her a moment, then she realizes that he had made a joke. She laughs, even though it was a rather pitiful joke. 

“No seriously,” she starts again after her laughter had subsided, her smile still in place “what is your name?” 

“Sally” he responds and she nods, taking a hand to his hair and gently patting his brown locks. The bartender blushes at her movement, but he was enjoying the elder woman’s touch. 

“I used to dream of having a rabbit called Sally” she says, and Sally turns his head to the side at her sad tone, but his smile was still there. Norma looks at him for a few more seconds, then they are broken apart from their ‘embrace’ as a hand knocks on the counter. Sally has to do his job, so he grabs her hand away from his hair softly, giving it a light kiss and then turning to the other side to help his customer. 

Norma had most certainly not expected the Sheriff to be said customer, and she gulped at the sight of him ordering a shot. She hopes he hadn’t noticed her. She really didn’t want to meet any familiar faces right now, so she stands up and finally makes her way to the stage. 

She pushes away the two drunks who were now trying to figure out what song they could butcher, and they both were about to protest until they saw that she was one of the very few females at the bar. 

Norma rolls her eyes and grabs the guitar, lightly swatting away the dirt from its strings and wrapped the band around her shoulder. It had been a while since she had played, in fact it had been too long for her own liking. 

The thing is, Norma had always loved music. There was a time when she had wished she could delve into a path and career full of it. That had sadly been a shortsighted thought, as it was around that time she had gotten pregnant with Dylan and had to escape her home life. 

Let’s just say that ever since she was 17, she hadn’t had time to practice. 

But that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t know what she’s doing. 

Norma strung the cords in practice, catching the attention of a few but her eyes were still focused on the task at hand. She sighs, closing her eyes and tries to reignite the passion she once had for this instrument. She thinks back on all the time she had spent after school in the school’s theater club, where the only working guitar was. She thinks of the hours she had spent there just to delay the arrival to her home life. She thinks of how many times she had been scolded by her teachers for staying after school had closed, until they simply gave up with telling her off. 

That certainly did something, because the next thing she knew, she was strumming to the tune of  _ ‘Basket Case’ _ by Green Day. A bit off key, but it got better as she went along and soothed her nerves.

_ “Do you have the time, to listen to me whine”  _ Her voice rang through the bar and it seemed to suddenly quiet down a bit, but the alcohol in her demanded for the attention. She grins and strums the next notes, her voice getting louder and more confident.  _ ‘’ _ _ About nothing and everything all at once’’ _

_ ‘’I am one of those melodramatic fools’’ _ Her eyes drift up from the guitar and she stares ahead at the bar where Sally stood, staring at her with his mouth open but twisted into a smile. She doesn’t dare look to the side of him, where she knows Alex was sitting.  _ ‘’Neurotic to the bone, no doubt about it’’ _

She sings the second verse of the song, her fingers getting accustomed to the guitar and were now strumming it without faltering. Norma felt a sudden rush come to her as she heard somebody yell ‘’you go girl’’ from somewhere in the bar, that comment truly making her go. 

_‘’I went to a shrink to analyze my dreams’’_ The lack of drums were suddenly filled in by one of the patrons at the bar, a large fella with a beard that put many others to shame, and he banked his fists on the table to the beat of the song. Some others joined in after, and the bridge of the song was up ahead. This was her favourite part, and she bobs her head as the voice of the two drunks tuning took over. 

The adrenaline in her body was toxicating, and it had been a while since she had felt so alive, and so damn good about herself. It had been a while since she had ever been to a bar with such customers who were drunk enough to shamelessly sing along to the song with her, not that it had happened before. 

The song ends way too quickly, and the cheers that come through as she strungs the last cord loudly made her jump in excitement. She bows energetically on the stage, a handful of her hair getting tangled and in the way of her eyes as she does the motion too quickly, but she doesn’t care. 

This was most certainly a well needed break from her life and thoughts. 

She almost skips back to the bar, thanking everybody who tells her she was great or how much fun her improvised performance was, and plops herself next to the sheriff. He had been smirking at her since she had caught his eyes when she finished the song, and she felt the need to go up to him. She couldn’t ignore him anymore, mostly because she couldn’t go a day without seeing him. He was very important. 

‘’So,  _ Sheriff Romero _ ’’ she leans her head on her hand, looking at him with heavy lidded eyes. That performance certainly did a number on her as well, since she felt so tired. That might also be because of the fact that she hadn’t been home in a day and hadn’t had time to eat anything proper. The nut mix at the bar wasn’t that filling. ‘’What are you doing here?’’ She almost whispers, and Alex’s smile fades as he turns his body to hers, his legs shifting so that hers was in between. 

‘’Well, Norma’’ He starts, his eyes finally landing on hers again. ‘’When somebody disappears from their sons without a reason or an explanation, people tend to call the police’’ He responds, and Norma suddenly feels herself sober up, and her eyebrows furrow. Before she can turn around and try to leave, as Alex had anticipated, he places a hand on her arms, the other going to try to tame her curls. ‘’Don’t worry. I'm not going to force you to go home’’ He reassures her, and she exhales in relief.

‘’Thank you, I guess’’ She mutters out and looks over at Sally, who had been sending them both an occasional glance. When she catches him staring, she smiles lazily at him and decides that she needed to treat the sheriff to her favourite drink. ‘’Hey, Alex. I have the perfect gift for you’’ 

Alex raises an eyebrow as he watches Norma ask for one motherfucker, and he grimaced when he hears her swear. That rarely happens. He doesn’t exactly notice what the bartender poured into the shot, but he accepts it from her and swallows it down in one go. 

He almost pukes. 

Alex coughs as Norma and the bartender laugh, and he suddenly feels as if he had fallen into an elaborate trap of hers. Like usual. ‘’What the hell was in that?’’ he groans, rubbing a hand on his throat. It tasted like whiskey and hot sauce, and that's when he saw the Tabasco bottle next to the cocktail shaker. ‘’Why the fuck do you have a drink with tabasco in it?’’ Norma giggles at his tone, and Alex realises that he might’ve slipped into his cop voice and scaring the young man working. 

‘’Don’t be scared of this big softy, Sally’’ Norma tells Sally with a smirk, and Alex rolls his eyes and stands up, picking up his wallet and asking for the total amount for his and Normas drinks. He gets the receipt from the boy and cringes as he sees her tab, consisting of only said disgusting drink. 

‘’You bought four of those shots? Really?’’ He asks in surprise, and Norma moans and throws her head back. Not knowing that he was right behind her, her head instead fals against his chest, and she shifts her back against his abdomen as well, because these backless stools were hurting her back. 

‘’Don't remind me..’’ She closes her eyes again and breathes in his scent, her body almost immediately relaxing in his presence.  _ This felt nice _ , she had to admit. The feeling of him so close to her was perhaps what she had needed the most these past two days. 

‘’Norma, when was the last time you properly slept?’’ Alex asks her as he pays the bill, and he is surprised when she rises her upper half and turns in the stool, placing her face into his chest instead. He does instantly respond to her movement, as he comes closer to her and places his hands almost awkwardly on her exposed back, the dip of the dress she had been wearing exposing it to the outside world. 

She shudders and fists a handful of his shirt into a hand, trying to stay awake. ‘’I slept in the car for about half an hour’’ she murmurs into his chest, and that’s when her eyelids get heavy and completely close. ‘’I want to pet Sally’s fluffy tail…’’ 

\-- 

She awakes with a start, sitting straight up in a very comfortable and large bed. Her eyes immediately shifts around the room, feeling dreadful that she had returned home without having had time to ponder about anything. As everything was a bit blurry, and the headache she felt left her in a daze and unable to process what she was seeing, she also felt betrayed. Alex had promised her not to bring her home…

Which is why she is confused when she doesn’t recognize this room. Where the hell was she now?

The windows were closed and the curtains were drawn nearly halfway over them, making her think that it wasn’t even worth pulling the curtains, but she is even more surprised when she looks to the other side of the bed and finds it empty. So was this a one night stand, a hotel or a motel room? 

Norma doesn’t have time to question this anymore than she had already, because the door had opened and Alex stepped in with a glass of water and a pack of ibuprofen. Exactly what she needed. 

She would’ve smiled if it weren’t for the killer pain she felt in her head. She reaches with both hands for the magical items that would solve all her life problems, which is when she notices that she was wearing a flannel that she had seen him wear outside before. Her face instantly heats up when she also notices that her bra had been discarded and was currently on the floor. 

She averts her eyes from the heap of clothes on the floor, instead accepting the glass and pills and immediately swallowing two in one go. Then she gives them back to him and lays back down on the bed, bringing the sheets over her once more.

‘’I don’t think I've slept so well in ages’’ she says and Alex laughs, and then she feels the bed dip down next to her. She pulls the covers down so they stayed under her chin, watching him cautiously as he looks down at her. ‘’I also don’t think I’ve ever been so hungover’’ He smirks, and Norma has to look away. ‘’Did I do something weird?’’ 

‘’Well, nothing out of the ordinary. You took four shots of tabasco, then you performed the best performance that bar has ever gotten, for free, and lastly, you told the bartender that you wanted to pet his tail’’ He stops, then grins. ‘’ _ His fluffy tail _ ’’

She groans as she remembers everything, and she rolls herself to the side, engulfing his body between her arms and knees. He arches an eyebrow at her move, but doesn’t question it. They have always been a bit weird when it came down to personal space. 

He does feel a bit embarrassed when he feels her chest pressing into his side, but he doesn’t let that show. ‘’I didn’t know you could play guitar’’ He says after a moment of quiet, and he looks down when she doesn’t answer, afraid that she had fallen asleep. He was instead surprised when he sees her staring up at him with her blue eyes, that needed no sunlight to shine so bright. 

‘’Practically a prodigy’’ She says, burying her face by his thighs and taking a breath. 

‘’When did you start?’’ 

She ponders about it for a moment‘’Around 13? I only started because I wanted to stay out as late as I could and still use the excuse ‘I was at school’ to my parents’’She shudders when she mentions them, and Alex notices her tone tense up at the end of her sentence. He doesn’t push the subject of her parents that often, since he could tell that was a sensitive matter to her. He also finds himself wondering if she had ever been able to go a week being happy and not reminded of all the shit that has happened in her life. Probably not… 

‘’Do you still play? I haven’t seen a guitar in your house’’ 

‘’No, I stopped when I got pregnant with Dylan’’ There was a heavy silence after that,and Alex decides that maybe he should change the subject to something a bit better, perhaps one about her shocking performance at the bar? Or complaining about the Tabasco shots they had taken. He wasn’t able to say anything as she speaks before him. ‘’I decided to stick with playing the piano instead’’ Oh, so she was sharing without him asking now. That’s an improvement. He hears her stifle a yawn and stretch her body a bit, pushing her chest into him and letting out a small moan of exhaustion after. He couldn’t bear hearing her make another small sound like that, since that would literally drive him insane. 

He shifts her body back to her first position, pulling her up from cradling him and instead placing her with her back on the bed, then he smiles as she looks up at him with clear confusion. ‘’How about you sleep some more?’’ He smiles down at her with a wide grin, and she lets a lazy smile plastered on her face as she closes her eyes. 

‘’Thank you’’ She replies sleepily, and just like that, her breaths even out and she had fallen asleep on him once again in the span of 24 hours. Alex really needed to bring her something to eat so that she could regain her usual energetic self back. He was rather unused to this sleepy and hungover version of herself. 

\-- 

He had let her sleep for four more hours, and the clock was ticking just past 12 now. Alex couldn’t cook for his life, so he had decided to go out and buy them both lunch from a nearby restaurant, opting on ravioli for both of them. He glanced at the desert menu and decided to buy some tiramisu as a desert for her, just to be nice. She did deserve to be treated to something sweet. 

He was surprised to see her up and walking around his home as if she was used to it, even though she had only been her two times prior to today. She was sitting on his couch, her legs over the edge and her back against the plush cushions. He tries to ignore the thoughts of her completely bare legs and thighs in front of him or that he would like to see her hanging around in his home more often.

‘’Hey, I brought some food’’ He holds up her takeaway bag, the one with the tiramisu on top of the food container, and she sits up straight and takes it. 

‘’Alex, you really didn’t have to do this’’ She says with a soft and loving smile, and he rolls his eyes. Of course he didn’t have to do this, he had simply wanted to. Like always. 

‘’No worries, Norma.’’

‘’How much do I owe you?’’ She asks, and he really hated when she asks him that question. It was as if she expected all good deeds to come with a price tag. 

‘’A call to Dylan to tell him you're okay?’’ he says nonchalantly, and she freezes midways of opening the container. He looks at her, stabbing some ravioli with his plastic form and eating them. She seems to have forgotten the reason why she had ran away from her home to begin with. She doesn’t answer, and he doesn’t say anything as they both eat in a comfortable but tension filled silence. He keeps glancing at her, making sure that she was eating and not plotting on running away.

‘’Can I borrow your phone?’’ She asks when she is done with her food, and he complies instantly, but gives her a questioning look. ‘’I accidentally dropped mine in mud yesterday.’’ He arches his eyebrows and looks skeptical. Norma groans as she puts the phone to her ear. ‘’Fine, I shot it’’

That did not make things better, as he now knows that she had brought a gun along with her and nothing else. He opens his mouth, his brows furrowing and he stares at her. What exactly was she going to do yesterday? What the hell was happening now in her life that he could only know ten percent about? 

‘’Hey Dylan, Its me’’ Her harsh voice cuts through his thoughts, and he stares at her. That tone was usually reserved to everybody else except for her sons. ‘’I’m good, although I still am angry at that shit you tried to pull on me’’ She hisses into the phone, and Alex unconsciously tried to figure out what they were talking about. 

He decides that perhaps he shouldn’t be listening so intently to their conversation and stands up, taking her empty container and his to the kitchen to dump into the bin. He stays there for a few more moments, mostly stuck in his thoughts about this entire situation, then drinking some water before entering the living room again.

Norma had changed her position, and was currently lying on her stomach on the couch, his shirt bunched up around her waist and leaving her rear exposed to him. She was apparently done with the call now, as she was mindlessly scrolling through the channels on his TV. He caught one look at her lace panties, and then he turns around. 

‘’Oh come on’’ She rolls her eyes at his behaviour. She finally finds a channel that seems remotely interesting, one about british celebrities cooking, and leaves the remote. She instead props herself up on her elbows and starts digging into the dessert he had bought her. ‘’You have already seen me naked’’ 

He turns back around, staring rather intently at her face as she eats the sweet treat. ‘’I have?’’ The confused tone, along with shocked face, was setting many alarms to what she had just said. Now Norma was questioning something as well. 

‘’Why else would I be half naked in  _ your _ bed?’’ She asks him, and he suddenly understands what she was implying. His confusion was now replaced by anger and disbelief. 

‘’Do you think I would take advantage of you when you were asleep?’’ He asks her, and for a moment Norma was going to say yes, but she stays quiet. No, Alex Romero was not like that. In fact, he might be the only man, aside from her sons, who hadn’t tried to manipulate her when she was most vulnerable. 

Alex catches on to her mixed expression, and he is once again reminded by her painful past, even though she hasn’t revealed too much about it to him. ‘’Jesus christ Norma’’ He mutters out, and for a moment he is hurt that she couldn’t give him a straight answer. Was he one of the bad men in her life? 

Norma, on the other hand, was quiet because there was still a few things that were unclear about the night, or how she had gotten here. She shifts on the couch, so that her legs were folded underneath her, and takes another spoonful of her tiramisu. She was now embarrassed, shifting a bit uneasily on her thighs. She also felt more exposed, knowing that their relationship hadn’t extended to something more intimate. ‘’Could you tell me everything that happened on our way here?’’ 

‘’I carried you to my car because you had fallen asleep at the bar. When we got here you woke up and complained about your dress for about half an hour, then you stole one of my shirts without even asking me.’’ He explains to her, then swallows and looks at her with a reassuring smile. ‘’Nothing else happened.’’ 

‘’Thank you’’ She mumbles out, then she sighs. Why had she expected him to be like all the other men in her life? So far, he had been nothing but loyal, trusting and helpful to her. She trusted him, even though it was the hardest thing for her to do. ‘’My brother is back in town’’ He is silent, seating himself next to her on the couch, but leaving an adequate amount of distance between them. She looks at him, feeling an immense amount of pain at what she is about to say. Or, it might be best to disguise it in some way. ‘’We- I don’t really get along with him’’ 

As vague as that sounded, she was still happy that she could tell him that. It was the best she could do today, but she for some reason decides to explain. ‘’Alex, it’s not that I don’t trust you-’’ He raises up a hand, signaling for her to stop. 

‘’No need to explain. I get it’’ He smiles at her, and Norma nods to herself. 

‘’Yeah, thank you-’’ 

‘’You also don’t need to thank me that often’’ He grins at her and she chuckles a bit, feeling slightly more at ease. She has said that way to many times, hasn’t she? ‘’By the way, Sally contacted me today when you were sleeping’’

‘’Sally? Really?’’ She asks, her eyebrows arching and a grin coming to her face. That sweet boy reminded her a lot of Norman, except for the disheveled brown hair. 

‘’Yeah, he told me that the bar wanted to thank you for bringing them free entertainment’’ He smirks and Norma laughs, her head lulling to the side and falling on his shoulder. She doesn’t make a move to get up, and he doesn’t seem too bothered by it. In fact, he wasn’t bothered at all. ‘’So I went and picked up your present from them’’ 

‘’What?’’ She turns her head up and looks at his lips for a second, then to his eyes, trying to see if he was joking or not. His genuine smile and happy eyes made her realise that this wasn’t a joke. 

‘’It's actually in my office, want to go see it?’’ He laughs as she immediately stood up, a huge smile on her face when she turns towards his office to run, but Alex caught her by the wrist to slow her down. ‘’Relax, it’s not going anywhere’’ 

She pulls on him to make him go faster, so much that they started a tug battle between them. He was pulling her back whilst she was laughing and trying to get release from his grip. She gave up with hurrying when she realised that he was much stronger than her. 

When they arrived at his office, her mouth opens and her hands go to her mouth in surprise. She had most certainly not expected to see the same guitar she had used yesterday standing in front of her next to his desk, sitting on its stand. It looked much cleaner now, and the strings seemed to have been replaced and properly tightened around the tuning pegs. 

‘’What the fuck’’ She whispers to herself and Alex chuckles at her reaction. He watches her go up to the guitar whilst leaning on the doorframe, a content smile on his face. 

She was frozen for a second, her face turned from Alex’s so that he couldn’t see what emotions was portraying, and she stares at the guitar. Nobody had ever gotten her such a present, in fact she had never really gotten a present in her entire life. Maybe a birthday card here and there or a few ill-meaning items she had gotten from her ex-husbands. Sam had once gotten her an iron with the quote ‘’So that you can iron my shirts better’’.

She reaches for the guitar with shaky hands, and then tears were falling down and she was crying. She tries to take a steady breath, but it comes out as a choke, and she feels lightheaded. She can’t touch it, wasn’t even able to do so, before her legs get too weak and she slowly falls to the carpeted ground on her knees. 

‘’Norma!’’ Alex was instantly beside her, holding her from sinking further down by her shoulders. When he sits in front of her, also on his knees, she pulls him closer to her and wraps her arms around his neck, burying her forehead into his chest. ‘’What? What’s wrong? Are you ok?’’ He frantically asks her, and she shakes her head, a smile coming onto her face as she suddenly feels overjoyed. 

‘’I’m just-’’ She sniffles, turning her face into the crook of his neck and placing a small kiss to the base. ‘’I'm just overwhelmed.’’ So without really accomplishing anything that day, Norma decides that it’s best for her to return to her sons and face her problem with her brother. 

  
  



End file.
